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First Lightning mainnet release

blog.lightning.engineering

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Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#41

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

thisisit wrote: post #35
apo wrote: post #29

For those who may not know the context, this has to do with long-term scaling of the Bitcoin network. The very first public response to Satoshi's announcement of Bitcoin was an expression of doubt about scalability: We very, very much need such a system, but the way I understand your proposal, it does not seem to scale to the required size. ... To detect and reject a double spending event in a timely manner, one must…

> Each one represents a kind of private ledger. That is an interesting quote. So, without the blockchain, how does Lightning track which transactions have been completed?

Basically each party has signed tx that prove the most recent balance of channel, when they want to close the channel they just broadcast the last signed txs.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#42

Post by dlubarov »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #9

Serious question, why does HN seemt o be in favor of lightning over BCH’s approach of not neutering the block size? LN has so many drawbacks. Have to always be online, need to hold hot walkets, need liquidity provided at both ends (kyc/aml)...

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally I just don't like the approach of trying to solve the problem by throwing more disk space at it. It feels... inelegant, and probably unsustainable long term. Imagine for a minute a future where Bitcoin goes mainstream and needs to process ~2k transactions per second. (A reasonable estimate of the world's current credit card transaction rate, and 3 orders of magnitu…

Lightning Network isn't really a satisfying solution in my opinion. It means that Bitcoin will just be a low-capacity settlement layer, and regular purchases will need to use PayPal-like middlemen to avoid hefty fees.

There are a few on-chain scaling solutions. One is Vitalik's approach to sharding. Payments would be split into debits and credits, and a credit transaction would include a Merkle proof showing that a bunch of validators on a different shard approved the corresponding debit. Double spending would be possible if you can corrupt a single shard, but users would be randomly bounced between shards to make that difficult.

Another solution, which I think is very practical, is to make some protocol changes so that scalable full nodes can be run by a cluster of servers. Running a full node would become expensive, but most users would be fine with SPV clients + fraud proofs. See https://ethresear.ch/t/scaling-via-full-node-clusters/1358

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#43

Post by tlrobinson »

apo wrote: post #29

For those who may not know the context, this has to do with long-term scaling of the Bitcoin network. The very first public response to Satoshi's announcement of Bitcoin was an expression of doubt about scalability: We very, very much need such a system, but the way I understand your proposal, it does not seem to scale to the required size. ... To detect and reject a double spending event in a timely manner, one must…

Great summary.

One common misconception is that LN transactions rely on some amount of trust with 3rd parties, vs. on-chain Bitcoin transactions which do not. This is not the case, payment channels and even multi-hop LN transactions are just as secure as on-chain transactions, modulo one important assumption: that you (or a service you delegate) can monitor the blockchain and broadcast a transaction (which is then confirmed on-chain) refuting a peer that is trying to claim an old (larger) balance, within some time period. This could be an issue if the blockchain is highly congested.

Scalability of routing is another concern. It's suspected that the network topology will end up looking more like hub-and-spoke (not unlike the internet itself) than a mesh, which may have implications for privacy and censorship-resistance.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#44

Post by sireat »

knocte wrote: post #25
foepys wrote: post #10

Did the Lightning Network solve the routing problem now or are they still emulating banks by requiring permanent online super nodes?

You know what? All the hops where your TCP/IP connection has gone to allow you to write that message, were provided by devices that had to be online in order to provide you the services. EOM

How does Lignting Network plan to deal with the fact that each transaction appears to require rerouting?

White paper glosses over this fact.

This seems like a huge rise in exponential complexity.

Because the channel balances change, the best(sometimes only) route change depending on each transaction.

An analogy would be the chaos that would ensue were each TCP/IP packet to require reworking of BGP routing tables.

PS Plus you have to worry about malicious nodes.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#45

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

gruez wrote: post #18
M4v3R wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was excited for Lightning until I've learned about Nano (formerly Raiblocks). It promised and actually delivered totally free AND near-instant transactions. Worth checking out if you didn't knew about it.

>I was excited for Lightning until I've learned about Nano (formerly Raiblocks). It promised and actually delivered totally free AND near-instant transactions. Worth checking out if you didn't knew about it. It's worth nothing that lattice/DAG based cryptocurrencies offer different security guarantees compared to blockchain based ones, so it's not fair to compare them on transaction fee/volume alone. Sort of like it'…

It's fair to compare them in terms of tx fee/volume, but excluding the different security guarantees is pretty bs.

It's also interesting to note that Nano doesn't incentives miners.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#46

Post by Erlangolem »

foepys wrote: post #10

Did the Lightning Network solve the routing problem now or are they still emulating banks by requiring permanent online super nodes?

or are they still emulating banks by requiring permanent online super nodes?

This. The result seems likely to be massive centralized entrenchmemt, unless you believe that most people are going to trust their money to their own dedicated systems. Centralized bitcoin kills its “cyberpunk” dream, and lower tx fees don’t matter to the majority using this as a speculative asset. As a solution to replace money the question of what advantages exist in a centralized version of Bitcoin seems especially probing.

Of course, you’d have to believe that cryptocurrency is more than a quasi-legal distributed, headless Ponzi scheme for any of that to matter. Increasingly it seems clear that when you filter out the pump and dump noise, the only thing investors in crypto really believe is that they’re going to get rich.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#47

Post by darawk »

foepys wrote: post #34
knocte wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what? All the hops where your TCP/IP connection has gone to allow you to write that message, were provided by devices that had to be online in order to provide you the services. EOM

Yes, but routers aren't responsible for keeping my money safe. If you don't constantly monitor all your LN channels, the other party can just steal your money by issuing fraudulent messages to the network.

Which is why trusted intermediaries like banks will arise. They will be responsible for monitoring the channels, and they'll do a good job of it. The important distinction, however, is that you will still have the option of broadcasting transactions to the main blockchain for a fee. Which means that you still have ultimate sovereignty over your funds.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#48

Post by polyomino »

brendanw wrote: post #38
jgeerts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we ever want Bitcoin to evolve from a store of value to an actual payment method we have to come up with something that does at least better than VISA's 8000tx/s and that's just not solved with going from 7tx/s to Bitcoin Cash's ~62tx/s. We have to be able to compete with every payment method out there and we should be able to handle peak throughput during sales period. Another important factor is the 10 minutes c…

It exists. It is called nano: no fees and instant transactions through the block lattice. https://nano.org/en/whitepaper I am surprised more folks on HN are not familiar with nano considering it is one of the few teams in crypto with endorsements from familiar faces: Zack Shapiro on the core team (ex-Product Hunt), Garry Tan (YC, angel investor in Coinbase), and Charlie Lee (former director of engineering @ Coinbase)…

Because these altcoins are default scams. Nano is basically iota + proof of stake. None of which have been shown to work in a decentralized fashion.

Re: First Lightning mainnet release

#49

Post by blattimwind »

siwatanejo wrote: post #23
blattimwind wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically a SEPA wire transfer just without using actual money?

Right, but using a "virtual" money that doesn't have counterparty risk, and cannot be counterfeited by anyone.

Since when eliminates Bitcoin counterparty risk? Also, counterfeit notes may be an issue, but counterfeit transfers are not.
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